THE NUTRITIONAL CHARACTERISTICS OF FOODS

This part provides details of the foods that are commonly given to animals, including their main nutrient content and factors that need to be taken into account when they are used in animal diets. 

Grass and forage crops form the basis of the diet of herbivores and are considered in Chapter 18. 

The other major method of conservation of forages is by drying, either naturally in the field as hay or straw or artificially as dried grass or lucerne. These foods are the subject of Chapter 20. 

For ruminants, forages alone are not sufficient to achieve the levels of production required and for monogastric animals, such as pigs and poultry, most forages are not appropriate since their digestion relies on microbial fermentation in the gut. In these situations, concentrated sources of nutrients are required and these foods are covered in the remaining chapters in this part. 

In addition to the main foods considered above, other materials are often added to the diets of animals in order to enhance the efficiency of nutrient use or modify conditions in the gut so that they are beneficial to the animal. These food additives are described in Chapter 24. 

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